


Renegades

by baph0maidn



Category: Fallout - Fandom, Fallout 4
Genre: Angst, Brief Mention of Underage Drinking, Canon-Typical Violence, F/M, Falling In Love, Fluff, Fluff and Angst, Friendship/Love, Swearing, Young Love, adolescent love, romance with tragic undertones, some violence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-09-21
Updated: 2016-09-21
Packaged: 2018-08-16 12:58:39
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 10,128
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8103199
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/baph0maidn/pseuds/baph0maidn
Summary: "You are never completely alone." 
Young Arthur Maxson's arrival at the Citadel; young Arthur Maxson's brawl with a deathclaw; young Arthur Maxson falling in love.





	

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Raiven_Raine](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Raiven_Raine/gifts).



> reposted at the request of several anons & several non-anons who will live in my heart forever. scene seeds are adapted from the Moscow Rules (which govern clandestine operatives; in her final form, Morgan Snow is an intel agent/spy).

**_#4. […] you are never completely alone._  
**

She spots them from the parapet, marching like ants but bigger, shinier. Chin-on-hands under the awning-shade, she’s been monitoring their approach for fifteen minutes before either of the day-watchmen says a word about it.

“We expecting anybody?” Knight Solis finally asks.

And Knight Carver cranes his neck to see what there is to see, shields his eyes to spot them. “Huh,” he says. “Recon team Falco?”

A head-shake. “Not ‘til next week.”

“Huh,” he says again. “So who the fuck…?”

A glare, a glance in her direction, both of which she expects. “Forget you heard that.”

Morgan yawns, repeats, “heard what?” for the tenth time in the past hour.

And another, “good girl,” muttered without thinking.

So no one’s expecting them, and yet there they were, a procession of Brotherhood soldiers, armed and dangerous, heading straight for the Citadel. 

A hesitating, “should we…?”

And then, “go.”

Solis disappears down the stairs, and while Carver’s distracted, thoughtfully scratching his beard, Morgan leans up onto her belly at the edge of the parapet, begins a quiet, careful count. Six wearing power armor, Knights, Paladins, a combination of both, five Scribes, and–

“Morgan.” Sharp as a molerat’s ragged claw. “Get. Down,” in a don’t-argue-with-me staccato.

She gets down, but she was getting down anyway, just as soon as she saw him, tucked sapling-short and conspicuous in amongst all the adults.

Impatient, she waits anyway.

Five minutes, six minutes, however many minutes, until she hears the commotion down at the gate, and then she tiptoes towards the stairs to the tune of Carver’s, “and where do you think you’re going?”

She stops, resists the urge to shuffle, to wring her hands, to twirl a strand of hair around a nervous finger. “I’m supposed to have lunch with Paladin Snow today.”

Of course Carver checks his watch. “It isn’t lunchtime.”

Eye contact, unwavering. “Paladin Snow always says, ‘it’s lunchtime when I say it’s lunchtime’.” But Carver wasn’t born yesterday, so she makes her eyes big, adds, “if I’m late–”

“Okay, okay, just go,” he says first, and then, to her back as she hops down the stairs, “but you better not be lying to me again, damn it.”

 

* * *

 

**_#12. Any operation can be aborted._ **

For a long time, she watches; just watches, just listens. Ducked down and leaned up against a sandbag wall, waiting for info-scraps.

She’s spent her life learning to blend in with the Citadel’s scenery, or, failing that, to look like she’s supposed to be wherever she happens to be. If a Scribe walks by, they’ll ignore her. If a Knight walks by, they’ll probably ignore her. If a Paladin walks by, she’ll say something respectful, and they’ll respond with something stern, but then she’ll pretend she’s en route, and they’ll ignore her too.

But the newcomers and their ward stand there forever under the midday sun, saying things she can’t hear to Elder Lyons, and it’s a long time before she even manages to catch his name.

“Paladin Vargas,” Lyons says. “Take Squire Maxson, show him his quarters.”

Maxson. He’s the only one young enough to be a Squire, so it’s got to be him.

But Maxson…

As in…Roger Maxson? As in…the-guy-who-invented-the-Brotherhood-of-Steel Maxson?

Then they’re off, Paladin Vargas and Squire Maxson, off with their dark-haired little shadow in tow. She follows them past the armory, past the mess hall, past the clinic, past….the barracks?

But…

And then they’re heading straight for the Paladins’ Hall, disappearing, eventually, behind that blue-metal door.  

Just a duo; shadowless.

Because Morgan decides: no amount of satisfaction is worth getting caught in there again.

 

* * *

 

**_#6. Vary your pattern; stay within your cover._ **

She has to be patient; she has to wait.

He’s someone important; she knows this without being told, but she concludes it, too, based on the way he’s whispered about among the Knights.

“Did you know he was coming here?” everyone asks everyone else.

“Hadn’t heard anything,” comes the response. “You’d think we would’ve heard something, right? It’s a long way to travel…”

From where? Out west?

“Lotta stuff going on out that way,” someone will add.

Like what?

And it gets unbearable, this not-knowing; who is Squire Maxson and why is he here?

The adults won’t tell her, so she’s dying to corner him, to interrogate him, but he spends his first day at the Citadel holed up in the Paladins’ Hall, far out of her reach.

At first, she hangs around, waits a while to see if he’ll come out. But one close call with Paladin Vargas, one muttered warning about getting into things and being underfoot, one simple, “does Paladin Snow know you’re out here?” and she’s scrambling for a better plan.

And then the rumble in her belly goes straight to her brain.

Because even important people have to eat, right?

So on the second day, she parks herself at a table in the empty mess hall, out of sight, out of mind, out of options, really, because if word gets back to Paladin Snow that she’s being nosy instead of minding the daywatchmen on the parapet while he’s doing drills with the new recruits, she’ll be back to sorting papers with Proctor Quinlan and Proctor Quinlan’s cat, codename Mc-Bites-A-Lot, and there’s nothing, nothing about that scenario that appeals to her at all.

It’s an hour or so before the Paladins trickle in.

Blabbering, as usual, about Paladin things: guns and fitness regimens and politics and disappointing recruits. “Couldn’t tell a molerat from his mama,” is a thing they say loudly and often.

But there he is.

With them, behind them, following at their heels like a pup. And she chews her hair, waiting, waiting, watches him join the line, watches him grab a tray, watches him get his food and wander to an empty seat nearby.

Before anyone can tell her not to, she parks herself in the seat across from him at the otherwise-empty table, plops down expectantly with an, “I’m Morgan.” And she extends her hand like she’s been taught to do when you meet someone, but Squire Maxson only stares and chews until she says, “you’re supposed to shake it.”

“It’s the other hand,” he tells her plainly.

“Oh…”

But he gives her left hand a little shake before she can switch them out, says, “I’m Squire Maxson.”

She frowns. “I know, but what’s your first name?”

A blink. Two. “Arthur…?”

“Arthur,” she repeats. “So, Arthur Maxson?”

A nod. “That’s right.” But then, “it’s more appropriate to address people by their title, though.”

It is? “Oh, um…yeah,” like she knew it all along, even though no one but her father and Elder Lyons ever addressed her by her title. “Squire Snow, pleased to meet you.” And she extends her hand again, the right one this time, polite.

To which Squire Maxson responds, smiling just a little, “we actually don’t have to shake hands again.”

“Oh…” There’s no way to play that one off, really. She feels the blush in her cheeks as she withdraws her hand, hopes he doesn’t see it, and she waits until he’s swallowed the bite he’s just taken before asking, “so you came from the west?”

A nod.

“Why?”

“My mother sent me here,” he says. “After my father died.”

“Oh…” It catches her off guard, this very personal thing he’s just told her. “Sorry for your loss,” she says, as she’s been taught to say.

“Thanks.” Another bite, chewed and swallowed.

But he doesn’t seem very upset, so she has to ask, “aren’t you sad?”

“A little,” he says. He pokes at his plate. “But they say he died ‘a soldier’s death’ because he was brave. And that’s how everyone should die, in battle.”

Yeah, she’s heard that too, but…she makes a face anyway. “Maybe we shouldn’t talk about dying,” she offers. “What with you being sad and all.”

And Arthur–Squire Maxson–shrugs. “We can talk about whatever you want, I guess.”

“Okay,” she drawls, deliberating over probably a hundred questions. “Why’re you staying in the Paladins’ Hall?”

“Because they told me to?” he says. “I dunno.”

Well that’s a boring reason, but whatever. “I’m not allowed in there,” she tells him, thumbing at a spot on the otherwise spotless table.

“Why not?”

A pause, in which she doesn’t meet his eyes. “I borrowed some stuff.”

“You borrowed stuff?” he asks. “Like what kind of stuff?”

“Like magazines,” she says. “Books. Holotapes. Cool stuff.” But he only stares at her, uncomprehending, until she says, “I give it back if they need it for something.”

“So…you aren’t allowed in the Paladins’ Hall because you steal stuff?”

“For your information, it’s not stealing if nobody’s using it,” she says, matter-of-fact.

“Did they say you could have it?”

“No, but–”

“Then it’s stealing,” he says like he’s so sure.

So she leans forward, fixes him in her absolute meanest glare. “Actually, it’s really not stealing because–”

“Squire Snow!” comes the warning bark, in a baritone you don’t ignore if you know what’s good for you. Her gaze snaps up to find him at a table full of Paladins across the room, staring at her with eyes the color and timbre of wildfires, of lit-fuses.

And she’s on her feet in two seconds or less, muttering an absent, “I have to go,” to the only other child she’s ever seen at the Citadel.

“Wait, why?” he calls after her, interested. “Who’s that?”

“That’s Paladin Snow,” she says without turning around. And because he wouldn’t know otherwise, adds, “my dad.”

 

* * *

 

**_#8. Don’t harass the opposition._ **

She finds him–she finds both of them–in the courtyard.

After poking around the Citadel for half an hour to no avail, boom, there he is, all moon-eyed and swoony on a bench by the practice yard, watching Sentinel Lyons blah-blah-training-blah-blah at Paladin Vargas like it’s the most fascinating thing he’s seen in his life.

This is how it goes, lately.

When she can’t find Squire Maxson, her next question to the Scribe-Knight-or-Paladin at-hand is, “is Sentinel Lyons at the Citadel today, sir-or-ma’am?”

Inevitably, “yes, why?”

And wherever she finds one of them, she’ll find them both.

She sighs loudly and violently enough for him to hear it, but he doesn’t acknowledge her presence until she melts into the space next to him on the bench with a groaning, “you always stare at her.”

Even then, the most she gets out of him is a shrug, a half-hearted, “so what?” Not a glance; not while Sentinel Lyons is occupying any nearby breathing-space.

Eyeroll. “So why?” comes her response.

“I dunno.” A shrug. “Because she’s pretty?”

“No she isn’t.”

“Is too.”

“Is not.”

Oh, now he looks over. “She is too,” he mutters.

And for the sake of fairness, just in case she’s missed something, Morgan looks the woman over again; the blonde hair, the bright eyes, the curve of her biceps, the cheerful, smiling demeanor and warm, friendly speaking-voice, the ever-present aura of importance, of authority….

“No,” Morgan says sharply, finally, “she isn’t.”

Predictably, he ignores her.

But she can only snap and unsnap the side pocket of her pants so many times before the boredom is too much for her wild little heart to bear. “Let’s go do something else,” she says; pleads, really.

A pause, and then, “you go.”

She gives him a final glance, a final, “well whatever, then,” before leaving him to waste his day however he wants..

When Sentinel Lyons is at the Citadel, it’s back to being like it was before Squire Maxson ever came, and Morgan falls back on the old habits, the old ways to kill time. She follows Scribe Bellefleur around listening for gossip; she follows Knight Carver around listening for gossip; she pockets the shell casings left over from target practice and leaves them in little piles along the sandbag wall.

She’s pulling on a loose thread in a practice dummy when she hears someone come up behind her.

“You shouldn’t do that.” Maxson.  

Without turning, “why not?”

“Because it’s destructive.” Matter-of-factly. “You shouldn’t break things.”

“They literally get beat up all day,” she counters.

“Yeah, but–”

“Haven’t you ever seen it?” she asks.

“Seen what?”

And now she’s smiling, motioning him over. “Look.” She takes a specific thread, shows him where the seam runs. “If you pull just the right ones, then it looks fine on the outside, but then as soon as someone hits it, POOF,” her hands fly up and out, “stuffing everywhere. It’s really funny.”

And she can’t decide how to categorize the face he makes when he says, “why do I always get the feeling that hanging out with you is going to get me in trouble?”

But when she offers him the frayed end of the thread, he takes it.

Smiling.

 

* * *

 

**_#17. Technology will always let you down._ **

He’s already moved the piece.

The white rook is four spaces further to the left than it was 30 seconds ago, primed to take her bishop on his next turn unless she moves it, because he knows the bishops are her favorite.

But now he’s just sitting there doing that thing he does, balancing his index finger on the piece’s head while he considers every possible possibility that was ever possible in the kingdom of chess. And she’s doing that thing she does where she tries not to fall asleep on the floor of his room.

Another minute. Sixty whole seconds at least.

“Are you–”

“Shhh…”

“You don’t have to–”

“Shhhhhhhhh….”

“Stop shushing m—”

“SHHHHHHHH….”

So she shuts her mouth, lets him think he won.

But then she flicks the rook out from under his finger, and it scatters his half of the board like buckshot on its way under the bed.

And she yawns under his wrath-and-steel glare before giving him a sweet-innocent, “what?”

A huffing sigh as he finds the rook, scoops the pieces into a pile by the board. “Was that really necessary?”

“Was shushing me really necessary?” she asks lightly.

“You know what, Morgan?”

“What?”

“Maybe if you aren’t going to respect someone’s playstyle,” he says, in that Arthury-way he says everything, “then you shouldn’t ask them to play.”

She regards him coolly. “You just play really boring.”

“No,” he counters, “I play smart. You play recklessly, that’s why you always lose.”

He begins to clear the board, putting the pieces carefully back in their stupid little boxes like he always does, and she crosses her arms instead of helping. “I don’t always lose.”

“Oh yeah?” he asks, the black king, her king, in-hand. “So how many times have you won?”

She looks away. “A few times.”

“You’ve won once,” he says in a tone that makes her want to knock him out. And then he’s on his feet, tucking the box back into its spot on the shelf across the room when he delivers the bombshell, “and that’s really only because I let you.”

Did he just….?

Deep breath; count to ten.

She clenches her fists at her sides, passes ten on her way to twenty-two before laying the trap. “Huh,” she says. “Well, I guess you’re just smarter than me, then.”

“Probably,” he says, infuriatingly. “I mean, chess is a smart person’s game, and I’m good at it, so–”

“Yeah,” she agrees, nodding. “Yeah, you’re good at smart people stuff. Like chess, and–”

“And math,” he adds.

Another nod. “And you’re really good at poetry.”

Silence.

So thick you could break it in half, dunk it in a bowl of stew and eat it, if you wanted.

“What?”

“Poetry.” Coy as a maid. “You know, like ‘Tweedle dumpling, tweedle dare,” she recites, “curse the younglings, if you ca–”

And his face is redder than a prickly-pear fruit when he says, “how’d you get into my terminal?”

“‘For theirs is youth, and joy and power,” she continues, pacing the room for effect, “five made one in the Lightman’s tower.’”

“How, Morgan?”

“And when they come, these five of sun….” she trails off.

The red’s faded to a soft pink. “If you weren’t a girl, I’d punch you.” Last-swing of the defeated.

She dares him with a smirk and an arched brow. “So do it,” she says. “Who cares if I’m a girl? I’ll punch you harder.”

But he won’t do it; he’s her best friend and she knows this, or else she wouldn’t taunt him. But what comes out of his mouth is actually worse than a punch. “Maybe I’ll just tell your dad.”

A quick and trembling, “don’t.”

“I dunno how you got my password,” he says, “but–”

“You wrote it,” she says. “On the back of the Guns ‘N Bullets hidden under your bed.”

A split second while he considers it, and then, “so you’ve been snooping through my other stuff too?” An angry sigh, a few strides towards the door and then, “I’m telling Paladin Snow.”

Another, “don’t,” but she’s got him by the arm this time, held-still in a stare as pleading and desperate as she can make it. “Please?”

His face softens, but only a fraction. “Stay out of my stuff,” he tells her.

“And you won’t tell him?”

“Not if you swear,” he says. “You swear and I’ll swear.”

She lets out the breath she’s been holding and sucks in a new one. “I’ll stay out of your stuff,” she says on the exhale. “Swear.”

“Yeah.” In the tone of someone who–rightfully, probably–doesn’t quite believe her. He’s guarded now, distant, and there’s more space between them than there is in the room.

“I’m sorry,” she offers, and unlike most of the things Morgan says in a day, it’s actually true. When he toes the floor, doesn’t respond, she says, “you know, I was just messing with you anyway. It’s a good poem, I dunno why you’d be embarrassed about it.”

“I’m not,” he says. But he hasn’t uncrossed his arms.

And then it dawns on her: that maybe he’s embarrassed about the other poem. Of course, she hadn’t referenced it on purpose because she was afraid it’d embarrass them both, but just in case that’s what’s going on, she says, “look, the other one was good too, okay?”

Just like that, his face is red again. Bingo. But instead of saying something defensive, he asks, “so you liked it, huh?”

A shrug. “Yeah, I guess.” But so she doesn’t risk hurting his feelings again, she adds, “I mean, I don’t really know Sentinel Lyons like you do, but yeah, it was sweet.”

“Sentinel Lyons…?” he says. The words sound like they’re caught midway between a question and an answer. And then, “right.”

She looks away, hesitating, breathing through the tightness that’s suddenly spread across her chest. A minute passes, two, and then, on a whisper, “maybe you should show it to her sometime.”

And when she looks back to him, he looks like he’s got something to say.

But he gives her a not-quite-smile, an almost-nod, and the only thing he says is, “yeah, maybe I will.”

 

* * *

 

**_#9. Pick the time and place for action._ **

She’s told herself five times in as many seconds: don’t look at your watch again; put your hand in your lap, keep it there, and don’t look at it.

If you look at your watch again, if you tap your fingers on the table, if you keep letting these silences hollow out between you in this empty room, he’ll know, and once he knows, bam, that’s it. So don’t. Look. At. It.

But she never knows what to talk about on the rare occasion that she finds herself sitting across the table from this broad, insincere man, so she asks him, “how are your recruits?” because she’s learned that if you ask him that question, he’ll do most of the talking for you anyway.

“Lazy,” he tells her. (If he were talking to anyone else, it’d be, “fucking lazy.”) “Do as much exercise as I tell ‘em to do and think they’re done for the day. Saw one of ‘em in the gym yesterday after training and had to pinch myself to make sure I was awake.”

This is a common complaint from him: that his recruits aren’t religious enough in their approach to personal fitness. And every time he goes off about it, she starts to feel a little sorry for them, the poor trainees who would always find themselves judged and lacking, because her father is the biggest man, the biggest human she’s ever seen, and the Citadel is nothing but big, physically-fit humans.

When they moved the armory from A-wing to C-wing, she watched him carry two miniguns from one end of the yard to the other, one 85-90lb gun strapped to each shoulder.

And he did this without breaking a sweat.

“How is it?” he asks.

“What?”

He flicks a glance at the plate she’s been poking for exactly fourteen minutes. “Oh,” she says. “It’s good. I’m just…not that hungry.” Her father doesn’t eat so much as he consumes, and his plate’s been clean for a long time now.

“Better be good. Tipped Britton twenty caps to serve us early.” He shifts, and the chair creaks beneath his weight. “So how’s Teagan?”

“He’s fine,” she says. Beneath the table, her foot tap-tap-taps.

“He teaching you a lot?”

A nod. “Yeah I guess, but he won’t let me touch anything.”

He laughs, a real laugh. “I wouldn’t either.” And then a moment later, straight-faced, serious-again, “and Knight Maxson?”

That sucker-punch surge of adrenaline, and she’s toeing the panic-line. Breathe; normally, not too deep. “What about him?”

“You know what I’m asking you, Initiate Snow.” Without even a hint of indulgence.

But she can never seem to lie to him; not successfully. So she stays as close to the truth as possible, says, “he comes to the armory sometimes, so I see him there.” And when her father doesn’t move, doesn’t speak, she adds the lie, “but we haven’t hung out at all.”

“You sure?”

“Yeah.”

Eye contact, steady as an iron wall. “So if I ask Teagan,” he says, “whether you’ve been showing up to work on time, what’ll he say?”

This is what it feels like, she thinks; to be something meek and huntable, something small enough that a properly-placed snare would equal death. “That I’m always on time, sir.”

And he gives her a look, the it-wasn’t-hypothetical, I-will-be-asking-him one, says, “good.” A pause, and then, gesturing at the half-empty plate, “do you want me to walk with you?”

“He doesn’t come in until eight,” she tells him. Truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth.

A thoughtful nod, and then he’s standing, shadowing over her. “Lunchtime,” he offers in parting.

A muttered, “see you then, sir.”

And she listens to the thump of his leaving footsteps, listens for the clang of the mess hall’s metal doors, timing it: one minute to exit the building, three minutes to cross the Citadel on the way to the gym, two extra minutes of padding in case he gets stopped along the way, two more minutes for her own peace of mind, and then she’s off, too, out the doors, past the barracks, to the little alcove behind the armory, where he’ll have been waiting, probably-impatiently, for the past ten minutes.

He’s there all right. And sure enough, his greeting is a brusque, “you’re late.”

Like she didn’t know it already. “Better than being followed,” she says, as though she’d even had a choice.

“Yeah, well I have to meet Paladin Vargas in ten minutes, and I can’t be late,” he says, “so close your eyes.”

So she does.

The sounds of his movement and then, “forgot to tell you to hold out your hands.”

So she does that too, smirking now, and the canvas bag he sets into them is anchored by the outline of what must be a book.

“All right, go ahead,” and she opens her eyes as he adds the inevitable disclaimer, “but you’re kinda hard to shop for, just so you know.”

“I told you not to worry about it,” she counters, but of course he ignores her.

One-thing-at-a-time, she sorts through the bag.

The latest issue of Total Hack, an inside joke, at which she offers an eyeroll and a, “ha ha.”

A near-pristine Covert Ops manual, which is also sort of an inside joke. Four years and they’ve got at least a thousand inside jokes between them.

A box of Fancy Lads, which she’ll probably end up splitting with him anyway, whenever they feel like spoiling breakfast.

And slinking around at the bottom of the bag, the only gift that confuses her: a silver ball-chain, like the kind they give you when you get your holotags.

But before she can ask him about that one, he says, “give me your hand.”

And then he’s laying a holotag into her outstretched palm, and she’s no closer to understanding it, really, until she sees the name. “You got your holotags,” she says. “That’s awesome.”

“Last week, yeah,” he says, “when they promoted me to Junior Knight.”

She thumbs the grooves of his name, smiling. “I didn’t even know.”

“You didn’t know because I didn’t tell you.” But it’s missing any of his usual snark, that comment. And before she can wonder too much over the fact that he didn’t tell her, this boy who knows everything worth knowing about her, this boy who knows the truth behind every lie she ever tells, he’s shuffling on his feet, watching her carefully, saying, “that’s what the chain’s for.”

She makes a face. “For your holotags?”

“For that one,” he says. And then, after a deep breath, “it’s, uh…actually, that one’s yours.” A pause, no exhale. “If you want it.”

She meets his eyes, that perfect rainy-day blue.

“Really?” she asks. And it’s probably the lamest she’s ever sounded in her life, but…

“Really.”

She swallows. “I, um…” But the words stop there. And when her fingers only tremble and fumble against the chain’s unwilling clasp, she holds it out, “can you–”

“Yeah.”

It doesn’t take him long to right it, to lean in, to drape it around her neck.

“Just don’t let Paladin Snow see it,” he tells her, as if he needs to.

She shakes her head.

And under her gaze: the self-satisfied little smirk, the way he’s standing straighter than he was a few seconds ago, the way his feet are still, not shuffling. Because he doesn’t get nervous, but that’s why he was, right? Because he thought there was a chance in the world she might not want to wear his holotag.

It’s a little too much.

A heartbeat, and then she’s got her arms around him, tight, and the sound he makes is like a laugh but smaller, gentler, while he hugs her back.

But then he’s pulling away, saying, “I’ve got to run, okay?”

Reluctantly, she lets go of him. “Okay.”

“Same time tomorrow, though?”

“Yeah,” she says.

And then he’s leaving her, heading off for wherever he’s supposed to meet Paladin Vargas, but he turns back just long enough to loud-whisper the words, “happy birthday, by the way.”

“Thanks,” she says, so low he couldn’t possibly hear it.

And she watches him go with that warm-metal name pressed soft between her fingertips.

 

* * *

 

**_#11. Murphy is right; what can go wrong will go wrong […]._ **

The new usual place is on the Citadel’s blind-side, a curving five-minute walk from the gate. He’s not late; actually, he’s not late for anything unless she makes him late. But she’s already there by the time he arrives, sitting stretched-out in the dirt, stifling a yawn under the still-pretty-dark of 4:30am.

“You shouldn’t be out here without me.” That tinge of guilt when it startles her, ruins her yawn.

But she looks up, half-smiles, and all she says is, “hey.”

“You aren’t even armed,” he says, taking his place beside her. “And it’s dangero–”

“I get it.” And he doesn’t know if she means it to be as harsh as it comes off, but then her head’s on his shoulder, and her fingers are curled around his, and she’s looking at the wasteland, not at him, when she says, “you said we needed to talk.”

A deep breath before he corrects her. “I said I had something to tell you.”

And he does; oh, he does. He could’ve told her 800 times over the past few weeks if he weren’t such a coward, and it’s not bravery that’s forcing his hand, now, but necessity; a so-simple lack of time.

A whisper, “so tell me.”

But he can’t.

Not while her voice sounds like that. “Hey,” he says instead, nudging her. “What’s the matter?”

It’s a long time before she answers him; long enough. He could’ve said the words he came to say, and when she speaks again, he wishes he had.

“You’re leaving.” And she’s looking at him now, accusing. “Aren’t you?”

A pause; the shameful kind, the just-got-caught kind. “How’d you know?”

“Vargas.” She’s looking away again when she says it. “He was telling Teagan about it yesterday, how his unit’s leaving next week on some mission. And I got suspicious, so I asked if you were going, and…”

“Look, I was going to tell you,” he says. “I just…wasn’t sure how.” Because I knew this is what would happen, he leaves unsaid.

“Yeah.” The syllable hangs raw and aching between them until she asks, “how long will you be gone?”

But this is where it gets bad, he knows, and he waits as long as he can before he says, “a few months.” It’s not even true; not really. He just doesn’t have the heart to tell her how much longer than that it’ll be. “I know it doesn’t seem like it,” he begins, “but this is a good thing. A really good thing. Vargas doesn’t select just anyone, and–”

“I know,” she says on a sigh. “Of course he wants you, you’ll be great, I know, I know, I just…”

Tell.

Her.

“I’ll miss you, okay?” And he can’t see her face, but she’s shifting, squirming in the grip of something painful and unfamiliar, when she says, “and what if–”

“Stop.” Tell her. “That’s not the right way to think of it.”

“How, then?”

He braces himself. “Think of it like,” his heart’s racing, “I’m out there doing all of these important things, supporting the Brotherhood’s cause, proving myself to Vargas and the others–”

“Yeah…”

“–but whatever I’m doing…” A hesitation he can’t help, and then, “I’m out there doing it for you.”

But he keeps on watching the wasteland, can’t bring himself to look at her face, even as she twirls the chain of his holotag, the one he’s wearing, around her finger. But he can tell she’s smiling when she says, “Arthur, just…please don’t get eaten by a ghoul, okay?”

And then he’s laughing; suddenly, they’re both laughing, because that’s always what happens eventually, every time they’re together, and that’s why he’s out here, isn’t it? To stop being a coward, to tell her how much she–

“Here,” she says. And she’s offering him a beer bottle, still-capped, with an, “I couldn’t get it open, though.”

He has to let go of her hand to take it. “And where’d you get this?”

“Teagan’s mini-fridge.” That sly smile, that implied where-else? And she’s so proud of herself, he doesn’t even start a fresh Morgan-please-quit-stealing-stuff, one-of-these-days-they’re-going-to-catch-you speech. “This is what you’re supposed to do when someone’s leaving.”

“Is it?” he asks. He thumbs it once, twice, and, failing that, edges the corner of his holotag up under the cap.

Her brow’s arched; are-you-kidding? “This is what the Paladins do,” she says, “the night before a team leaves on assignment.” She’s watching him, interested. “It’s really stuck, th–”

A clink, a hiss.

“…nevermind,” she says, impressed, giving him that adoring kind of look she sometimes gives him, the one that makes him forget his name, and why in god’s name hasn’t he told her yet? He offers her the mouth of the bottle, but she shakes her head, “you first.”

So he sips it.

And he’s never tasted brahmin piss, but….

A shudder. “I think it’s been sitting out too long,” he tells her.

Pure, unadulterated curiosity. “Really?” Excitedly. “Is it super gross?” She can hardly stand it, can hardly contain herself over the fact that he’s experienced this gross thing and she hasn’t. “Give it.”

“I don’t think you wan–”

“No, hand it over.”

So of course, he hands it over.

Five seconds later, the sounds she’s making are only vaguely human. “Blehhhh,” and an undignified spit. “Holy shit.” Another spit, less dignified, more dramatic. “This is….” she wipes her face repeatedly with her sleeve, “oh my god, this is so gross.”

And he’s laid-back in the dirt now, laughing out an, “I told you,” so hard he’s got tears in his eyes.

“Ugh, man. Man.” She’s still carrying on. “Bad idea. Very bad idea.”

“You’re ridiculous.” And he’s still laughing as he says it, but at least he’s breathing again. “You never listen, you can’t. You just have to do it for yourself.”

That smirk, that mild fake-offense; she wears it beautifully. “Yeah, yeah,” she says, but she scoots closer to him anyway.   

And his heart’s racing again.

Because this is it; this is when he’s supposed to tell her what he really came here to tell her.

But he’s ensnared.

By the fire-slick gold of her gaze, by the gentle curl of her hand around his forearm, and before he can say another word, he’s leaning, breathing deep, trembling, and she’s leaning, breathing deep, trembling, and they’re close, so close he can feel her breath on his lips, his nose, his chin, and her eyes are going wide, wild, and her fingers are clenching, digging into his arm like a chain, and something’s wrong, and–

“Arthur.” So low, it’s more breath than whisper, so low he feels it more than hears it. “Look.”

One small motion; he turns.

It’s a hundred feet away, maybe; he’s never been good at estimating distance, he’s never had to be, not really.

And it doesn’t look anything like the pictures in Quinlan’s books, those crude brown-green-black cartoonish drawings with their quaint, carefully penned little captions: “the deathclaw [Chamaeleo Mortis] is a bipedal reptile named for its foot-long claws, with which it can often kill a man in a single swipe.”

No, the deathclaw cantering about in the pre-dawn shadows however-many feet away from them looks nothing like those hand-drawn pictures.

Not. At. All.

“What do we–”

“Shhhh…” with a fingertip, one soft-tremor against her lips. He feels the muscles of her jaw contract as she swallows, as the deathclaw moves, lumbers, a few feet to the right, and he just sits there, frozen, watching, until he feels her tear warm against his thumb. “They can’t see in the dark,” he turns to tell her. And, “be. Quiet.”

But when he looks back, it’s closer. Isn’t it? Yes; definitely closer.

And she’s noticed it too because she’s panicking, coiled spring-tight and squeezing his arm so hard it hurts.

He reaches for the laser pistol on his belt, and she says, low, “can you kill it? With that?”

“I don’t know,” he tells her, but it’s all they have; she’s probably never even held a gun except to clean them under Teagan’s supervision.

“Maybe if we walk really quietly…”

Read any wasteland survival guide, ask any Paladin, and they’ll tell you the same thing: the second you try to outrun a deathclaw, you’re already dead.

But he doesn’t tell her that.

Instead, he says, “get to the wall and follow it. As soon as I fire, it’ll–”

And she’s shaking her head already, deadpanning, “no.”

“I shoot, you ru–”

“No.” There’s no give in that syllable, none at all.

“Just–”

“No.” It’s frantic, too-loud, and he snaps around, this-is-it, this-is-how-it-ends.

And his whisper-voice is desperate, pleading when he says, “you’re unarmed, and that thing’ll split you open in five seconds, Morgan.”

“I don’t care,” she whispers back, infuriatingly, and then she pants the words in a chain: “I’m. Not. Leaving. You.”

And…he’s at a loss; an utter loss.

Because he can’t imagine a scenario that doesn’t put her far away from him the moment he starts firing, the moment he draws the beast straight towards him, but if she won’t run, what else can he do? What else is there?

Then: a wet sound.

He turns to look and she’s tipped the bottle over, pooling the unsipped beer out into the dust. Puzzled, “what’re you doing?”

“I’m gonna throw it. Get its attention,” she says. A deep, shaking breath, “get ready to run.”

“Morgan,” he says, “listen to me: we can’t outrun it. We can’t.”

“I know.” And he’s not sure she does, really, but then she says, “Carver. The day-watch. If we’re in range…”

The dawn’s blush-pink, and it’s past 5am, and actually….she’s not wrong, not exactly: if they weren’t back here, on a secret rendezvous and hiding from them on purpose, they’d even be able to see the two to four snipers coming on duty, poised-and-ready, high up on the Citadel’s parapet.

And the Citadel’s snipers don’t miss.

She’s got the bottle’s neck between her fingers, poised-and-ready, the question on her face, when he says, reluctant and terrifyingly out of options, “throw it that way.” A head-tilt. “Okay?”

The tears are long-gone, and she’s nodding as he helps her to her feet with the hand not white-knuckling the laser pistol. “Okay.”

“Count it down first,” he says. “And then….go. Just go, don’t look back.”

Another nod, a tentative, “on three.” And then, “one.”

Wait for it.

“Two.”

Get ready.

“Three.”

And then she slings her arm back, forward, lets it go; the bottle makes a high arc, whistle-whooshes through the air.

One word, to the wind-rush of his pulse: “run.”

And there’s nothing left to do but run.

The bottle shatters far away, and for dear life, they run.

“Carver!” comes the sound of her voice beside him. “Knight Carver! Knight Solis!” Over and over again, before the parapet’s even in view.

And he lets her do the yelling because he’s listening for it. Because he knows he’ll hear it, and he has to be ready.

“Knight Carver!”

Listening.

“Knight Solis!”

Listening.

And behind them, too-soon, the sound: of distance being closed. Of something big, something massive, breaking grass, rock, twig, earth under its feet in pursuit.

And he yells, “keep running!” just before he stops, just before he turns, just before he aims (low; if you’re being chased, aim low, aim for the kneecaps), just before he catches sight of it, loping, lumbering towards them like a pendulum, quick, precise.

Five shots, one-two-three-four-five, five red laser-flares before it’s close enough to rear back, to swing-low with one blade-tipped hand, before a weight slams into him from the other side, topples him, a weight screaming, “Solis! Knight Carver!” in a pitch so high, so wild, it could shatter glass.

They hit the ground in unison, coughing, tumbling, choking on dead grass and wasteland dirt.

By the time he stops, he’s dizzy, scraped-and-reeling and–

Unarmed.

–but she’s screaming again.

And there’s no Carver, no Solis, no name at all in it this time.

He acts on instinct, throws himself, unthinking, against the deathclaw’s flank the way Morgan had thrown herself into his, grabs those horns with both hands and pulls, sharp, twisting, back and forth, waiting for the bone-snap that he never actually hears before he’s flung to the ground.

It misses his heart, his gut, his eye, but it splits the side of his face like a seam.

One long claw, one quick slice, white-hot.

But then it’s rearing back again, and he’s rolling, rolling, reaching, reaching for the laser pistol.

Pop.

A gunshot.

Pop-pop-pop-pop.

The deathclaw roars; it staggers.

And then his hand’s closing around the gun again, and his finger’s on the trigger, shaking, and he fires and fires and fires until the beast falls, collapses, hits the ground like a bleeding boulder.

Pop-pop into its unmoving chest.

“Arthur, are you okay?” comes her voice, and he’s scrambling towards her with the same question, but it takes her one look and two seconds, and she’s got her sleeve-covered hand pressed tight against his face. “Oh my god, your face…” she says.

“Yeah, I know,” he says on a breath. But her other arm’s nothing but a long, ragged tear, and they dissolve into a fumble of blood-streaked limbs as each worries more over the other’s wound than their own.

Eventually, he says, “no, no, here,” and he takes her wrist, still running on instinct, pulls her hand away from his face and presses it flat against the damage on her forearm. “Pressure, okay? Hold it.”

“Okay.” Meek, shell-shocked, terrified.

Tell her.

Three words.

Say it.

“I–”

“Jesus fucking Christ,” comes Knight Carver’s voice from nearby.

Three words.

And it’s all over.

 

* * *

 

**_#11. […] at the worst possible moment._ **

Among the things she barely notices, barely registers in that blood-and-shock haze: the first brief needle-pinch; the Med-X, like a tide; Knight Carver’s arms, lifting her, cradling her, forcing her wounded arm to lay flush and aching against her chest; the gauze-and-antiseptic-smell of the clinic; voices, everyone’s voices; and finally: another needle.

With an interest mostly-dulled by pain and Med-X, she watches Cade weave this second needle in-and-out, in-and-out, joining the frayed edges of her skin like the split-burlap seam of the practice dummies she loves to ruin.

And she’s aware of him too, perched perfectly-still on the table across the room while Scribe Bellefleur does to his face exactly what Cade’s doing to her arm, but even if she could make coherent words, she doesn’t dare call out to him; she doesn’t dare say a word, not to him, not to Knights Carver and Solis, not to Scribe Bellefleur, not to Paladin Vargas, not to Knight-Captain Cade.

Because she knows.

She knows how bad it is, and so do they.

It’s why they aren’t talking to each other, either; because they know why the room feels smaller than it is, why the room feels like a heel to the throat.

Cade knows it when he says, “has anyone told her father?”

Solis knows it when he says, “he knows, sir.”

Vargas knows it when he stiffens, shoots a warning-glare in Arthur’s direction.

And Morgan knows it better than all of them combined when she hears the thudding-echo of those footsteps in the hallway, feels his presence like a wind in the door.

She looks down at the needle.

In.

Out.

In.

Out.

“Morgan.” One syllable, spoken-not-yelled, and it still strikes her like a blow.

Silence.

In-and-out, the black thread. She won’t–can’t–look up.

Then he’s closer, only inches away when he says, in that same voice-like-thunder, “look at me.”

Immediately, she obeys.

And it takes him three stitches to say what he needs to say, this citadel of a man, three stitches to ask, “are you alright?”

A nod, a , “yeah,” garbled by Med-X and her own misfiring nerves.

And, “good,” is all he says.

It’s all he says before he crosses the room, one slow-stride over to that other table.

It’s all he says before he stands there, regarding Knight Maxson with absolute, undiluted malice.

It’s all he says before he passes Paladin Vargas, before he passes Knight Carver, before he passes Knight Solis.

One word, and she knows: it’s all over.

 

* * *

 

**_#4. Don’t look back […]_ **

There are two wounds.

The physical: crescent-shaped, jagged. Curved wide like a smile in the middle of his right cheek. He counted nineteen stitches, but the Med-X made him feel like his head was underwater, and he knows he probably missed a few. When he swallows, when he speaks, when he moves his head, when he breathes: it hurts. Everything hurts.

But it’s not the physical pain that’s got him folded over himself on the edge of the clinic’s metal table, staring at the dotted blood-trail on the floor that nobody’s bothered to mop up yet, his or hers or both of theirs.

If anyone ever asks him what it feels like to get mauled by a deathclaw (and they’ll ask; of course, they’ll ask), he’ll have to tell them it’s not so bad, it’s nothing, really.

Next to shame, that hot-coal, black-hole feeling in the center of your chest, it’s nothing.

“What were you thinking, exactly?” Vargas wants to know.

Cade, too. Standing there with his arms crossed, tight-lipped. His posture echoes everything Vargas says and then some.

“She’s a civilian. That’s not lost on you, is it? That you took an unarmed civilian, a 14-year-old unarmed civilian, outside the Citadel’s walls?” The fact that he’s also 14 is somehow irrelevant.

“Her idea. I told her,” a wince, “she shouldn’t.” He did. More than once. Just like he told her more than once to stop stealing, just like he told her more than once…well, he told her everything more than once. Except that last thing, which he didn’t even manage to tell her at all.

“Is that the best you can do?” Vargas asks.

“Not defending,” he says, as if he could even hope to. “Just explaining.”

A laugh-scoff, don’t-even-bother. “Look,” he says, and his voice is much lower, “nobody’s surprised by this behavior out of her. But you? You know she’s pulling something like this, and the first I hear about it is while I’m watching the two of you bleed all over Knight-Captain Cade’s clean fucking floor? For fuck’s sake, why?”

But the only answer he has isn’t really an answer.

And he isn’t even going to say it out loud until Vargas says, “well?” in a tone that demands something, anything, be said.

“Because I love her.”

Silence.

It just sits there, that word, the word that’s also a reason, and it justifies everything, right? He made a tower of that word, and he climbed it. He’s standing on it now, staring down at them, untouchable. Because love, that’s why. Love.

“Yeah?” Unsympathetic. Skeptical.

The tower’s trembling.

His jaw clenches and it hurts like hell. “Yeah.”

And Cade’s not looking at him anymore. Neither of them are when Vargas says, “well so does her father, Knight Maxson.”

The tower’s leaning.

“Her highly-regarded, well-respected father,” is Cade’s contribution. And then, “he could have you demoted, you know. Everything you’ve worked for, he can take it away,” finger-snap, “just like that.”

The tower’s falling, falling…

“Insubordination, reckless endangerment of a civilian,” Vargas lists. “Do I need to go on?”

And it’s nothing but rubble now, that place he built. Nowhere to stand as he watches a career he hasn’t even started yet get snatched out from under him like a rug. “No,” he says.

A tense pause, and then the thing he’s been expecting, the thing he’s been waiting for this entire time. “You’re out.” Yeah, he expected it, but it still cuts deeper than that dead deathclaw’s fingertip. “You aren’t where I thought you were, judgment-wise, maturity-wise, and I can’t take you with me on this assignment. You can’t follow orders, so you’re too much of a risk.”

“For what it’s worth,” Cade adds, “I agree with Paladin Vargas’ assessment.”

Of course he does; they all will. No, they all already do, because who doesn’t know, at this point?

“I understand.” Worst of all: he does.

But then a voice from the door, a voice he doesn’t want to hear, says, “I’d like a minute with him.”

And the two men are engulfed by his presence before they ever even leave the room. “We’re not done,” Vargas slings in his direction before he and Cade disappear out into the hall.

Paladin Snow pulls up a chair, sits, elbows-on-knees. The voice that addresses him is calm, controlled, reasonable, non-malicious; nothing like what he expects. “You and me,” he begins, “we need to have a little talk.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Vargas is right. I could have you demoted,” he says. “I don’t give a damn what your last name is, you bet your ass they’d grant it in a heartbeat after this little stunt.”

“Is that what you intend to do, sir?” He clenches his fist this time instead of his jaw.

But when he speaks again, the man sounds exhausted. “No, son, it isn’t. Not even close.”

Relief. Small and tentative, but it’s there, cool as a breeze. “Really?”

And Paladin Snow nods, thoughtful. But then, eyes-on-the-floor, he says, “when Morgan was eight, Proctor Hill had her working an afternoon cleaning shift in the barracks a few times a week. Light work. Sweeping, dusting, stuff like that. Just something to keep her out of my hair during those long-ass training shifts I’d sometimes have to work. And then one day, couple of weeks into this arrangement, Hill comes to me, says, ‘Paladin Snow, I’m sorry, but she’s gonna have to work somewhere else.’ And I brace myself–god, I’ve spent most of her life bracing myself–I ask her why.” A pause; he’s still bracing himself, even as he tells it. “And she proceeds to tell me that my daughter, my only child, has been stealing the Knights’ cigarettes as she’s been cleaning, hiding them, and then trading them to the caravaneers for candy. And do you know what I thought, when she told me that?”

“What?” Eagerness, in spite of everything; to collect these scraps, to know more.

“I thought, ‘well, that isn’t so bad.’” A pause, a rueful laugh. “Because the week I had her helping Cade in the clinic, she stole a permanent marker out of his desk, which he swore to high hell was locked at the time, and drew all over the posters in the exam rooms. And the couple of weeks she was working for Renner, back when he ran the kitchen, she kept changing the clocks in the mess hall, setting them forward so he’d let her leave early. And if I tried to tell you the stunts she pulled on Quinlan, we’d be here all night, but…she did get him locked out of his own terminal three times.” And he’s talking mostly to himself, now, all tangled up in these memories. “You know, I had to promise Teagan a raise when he took her on in the armory? No raise, no deal.” A head-shake. “Didn’t blame him, either. Nobody else would even take her at that point, my hands were tied.”

The stolen beer; her face when she tasted it. Smiling hurts more than anything, but he does it anyway.

“There’s not a single person in this base,” the Paladin says, “who doesn’t know my daughter by name. Don’t believe me, you try it. Walk up to any Scribe, Knight, Paladin, ask, ‘who’s Morgan Snow?’ and they’ll have more than a word or two to answer you, they’ll have a story. Hell, I hope you realize you’ll be wearing yours for the rest of your life, son.”

Acknowledged, the stitches burn.

“My daughter’s a thief, a liar. She’s reckless. She’s stubborn. She’s disobedient. But that’s not you, is it?”

She’s a lot of things, and those are among them. But still, “no, sir.” He and Morgan are nothing alike.

Paladin Snow nods. “You’ll be on that assignment with Vargas next week like nothing’s changed, I can promise you that. How you do is up to you, but you’ll be there.”

Shock; it takes him a minute to offer a puzzled, “sir?”

“The Brotherhood’s expecting a lot out of you,” he says. “They’ve been waiting on you, that’s why they’re so fucking mad. I’ll be damned if a Snow’s going to be what impedes you. Not her, not me. You make a name for yourself? This won’t haunt you for long if it haunts you at all.”

Were they? Expecting a lot out of him? “I…” he stammers. “What about her?”

“I’ll deal with her.”

He can’t help himself. “How?”

And his eyes burn in that same shade, with that same raw light, but where hers are the first mischievous sparks of a brushfire, his are the last smoldering embers of something already reduced to rubble and ash. “I knew you were going to be my problem,” he says. “I knew it the second your fucking name came out of her mouth.” And then he’s standing, heading for the door. “Fourteen years, and she hasn’t ruined me. Someday you’re gonna look in the mirror, right here,” and he traces the shape of Arthur’s pain in the middle of his own cheek, “and what I hope you’re remembering, however many years from now, is how you didn’t let her ruin you, either.”

 

* * *

 

When they arrive at that fortress-like place near the coast, Morgan and her father are greeted at the gate by four different people; three men, one woman; two armored probably-watchmen, two not; Brotherhood, all of them.

And it’s insulting.

Viscerally insulting.

Because it’s obvious that they were expected, and when her father dragged her, still-groggy, still-sore, out of her bed at dawn that morning, trekked her for hours (she isn’t sure how many) across the wasteland, he managed to ignore the question, “where are we going?” at least a hundred times.

“Stay close to me,” is all he said, every single time she asked. And the wasteland spread out dead and vast around them, and she stayed by his hip, this giant of a man, because the wasteland had gotten a lot more terrifying in the past 24 hours, and it was profoundly comforting to her that he wasn’t the least bit afraid.

And now: she’s here, in this place without a name.

“Erick,” one of them says, an all-gray man; gray hair, gray beard, gray eyes, grey-black flight suit. That he’s greeting her father by his first name is noteworthy, so she makes note of it; no one at the Citadel ever does that.

But then her father says, “Luke.” And he smiles.

“I don’t believe you’ve met Paladin Murdoch,” the man called Luke says, and her father shakes hands with the other unarmored man, who looks younger than both of them but not even a smidge friendlier.

“Sir,” Paladin Murdoch offers.

And she expects them to ignore her entirely, but then the gray one, Luke, leans down, offers his hand. “Paladin Brandis,” he says.

She offers him the correct hand, though the stitches are ugly and tender in their black-red line up her arm. “Morgan,” she says, glaring; she’ll say Initiate Snow if they hold her down and beat it out of her.

But his next words aren’t to correct her; his next words aren’t to her at all, they’re to her father. “I’ll show you where she’ll be staying,” he says, standing.

Staying? Staying?

She scrambles to follow, but her father stops her in her tracks with a terse, “wait here.”

And then he leaves with Paladin Brandis, with Luke, and it’s just her and Paladin Murdoch and her bag, which falls from her arms to the dirt as she watches them go.

“Here,” Murdoch offers, taking the bag. It’s small; nobody said anything about staying anywhere. But he’s carrying it, leading her to the stone steps of a nearby building, gesturing for her to sit. “What happened to your arm?” he asks. But he asks it that way people do when they already know the answer and are just trying to make conversation.

“Well,” she says, still watching the door her father and Brandis have disappeared behind. “Proctor Abrams started a fire in the kitchen. Grease fire, I think. I dunno, I wasn’t out there when it started, I was in the back room. So the only way out was the window.” She glances down at the stitches, mock-woeful. “Just wish I would’ve opened it first.”

A pause; a pause before the anticipated reprimand.

And his wry, knowing little smirk surprises her less than what comes out of his mouth. “Not bad. Few irrelevant details, but…not bad. Is that the best you can do?”

“I…what?”

His face doesn’t change. “It looks like it hurts.”

It feels like someone’s peeled her arm like a mutfruit. “Not really.”

“Were you scared?”

Like a rabbit in a snare. “A little.”

He regards her coolly. “Better,” he says.

And then, because he seems forthcoming, she asks, “what is this place?”

“Blue Haven,” he says. “Never heard of it?”

“No.”

“Not many people have.”

Frowning, “why?”

“Because everything’s classified,” he offers. “Paladin Brandis is the head of the Brotherhood’s intel division.”

She has some idea what that means; vaguely. But what seems more important, more concerning, is, “then why am I here?”

And then his face goes a little solemn, and she knows.

It’s another fifteen minutes of mostly-silence before her father and Paladin Brandis return from their walk. One look at his face, and the dam threatens rupture. “Don’t leave me here,” she says.

And for a moment, she swears it’s there: regret. The smallest thread of it. Something that could be seized and yanked and used to unravel him at her feet. And it’s hidden a little better when he says, “Morgan…” but it’s still there.

“He’s leaving next week,” she pleads, and immediately, she knows: it’s the wrong thing to say. The floodwaters rise and rise.

His face, steel; his voice, iron. “You could succeed here,” he tells her. “If you decide you want to. The three of us don’t agree on much,” he flicks his gaze amongst the assembled, “but we agree on that.”

“What I want,” she says, “is to say goodbye.”

No regret; not much of anything at all when he tells her, “you already did.”

Just a fissure, just a crack; the first tear, just a trickle.

“I won’t forgive you.” It’s unsteady, her voice, but she holds it, holds it. Her hands are curled into claws at her sides. “I won’t.”

But he seems to know that already, seems to have accepted it. And then Brandis is walking him to the gate, and she’s breathing, eyes-closed, willing it back, that deep, dark water.

Eventually, she hears his returning footsteps, hears him ask, “what’s wrong?” with that same asking-but-I-already-know tone.

“Nothing.” Something between a choke and a growl.

She can’t see him with her eyes squeezed tight, but she hears him move, feels him near. “From now on,” he says, “you have two choices, and two choices only: either lie well, or tell the truth.” A pause. “So what’s it going to be?”

The dam breaks.

And for a long time, she just cries into the unyielding little shield of Arthur Maxson’s holotag. She presses it into her palm, presses her palm against her face. Which cheek, which cheek was it? How could she have forgotten already? Eventually, in a voice she doesn’t recognize, she says, “I think…I might love him.”

But Brandis doesn’t say a word until she meets his eyes, and then he says, “I believe you.”

Anger. Like a deathclaw trying to claw its way out of her chest. “Then why–”

“Because you nearly got each other killed, didn’t you?” And when she doesn’t answer immediately, doesn’t tell him what he already knows, “yes or no?”

She squeezes her eyes shut. “Yes.”

“So do you understand,” he asks, “why you’re here?”

One reluctant, one last snot-distorted, “yes.”

And he nods, thoughtful, puts his arm around her shoulder like no one but Arthur’s ever done before, and she’s leaning, allowing herself to be comforted by this gray man, by Paladin Luke Brandis, by the head of the Brotherhood’s intel division. “I’ll make you a promise, right here, right now,” he says. “Okay?”

A sniff. “Okay,” she says, and Murdoch looks on, sympathetic, arms-crossed, charmingly-aloof.

“If I’m going to lie to you, you’ll know I’m lying,” he tells her. “Always.”

“Okay?” Uncomprehending.

“And that’s our deal, because,” he continues, “when I’m not lying to you, I want you to believe me, always. Got it?”

Maybe, kinda. “Okay,” she says anyway.

And he takes a deep breath only to sigh it back out again, says, “plenty of people who walk outside those walls don’t ever make it home again. Plenty of people leave the Citadel, and that’s it. They don’t ever get a second chance.” And then he carefully, so carefully, turns her arm over in his hand, exposes that hateful bloody-scarlet line. “This,” he says, “is where you look. To remind you.”

“Remind me of what?”

“Why you’re here. Because me and Paladin Murdoch,” and at his glance, Murdoch gives her a nod, “we aren’t going to let you waste yours.”


End file.
